Games played by cars are known but do not involve education on defensive driving as in the present invention in its comprehensiveness and uniqueness.
In 1958, Norma Langham first began to develop the game as a traffic cards game without a board and, therefore, developed a set of traffic questions and answers on three-by five-inch cards. In 1986, she returned to developing the game, this time with a game board. In 1987, Pauline Glod joined her, both being, then, emeriti college professors, to invent "DD!, Defensive Driving Game of Cars" by pooling their expertise in education, in developing creativity in children and in college students, and in children's dramatics and theatre, along with their years in driving, in order to contribute to reducing the terrible toll of traffic accidents by a game which will entertain and inform children, teenagers, and adults, including senior citizens. They researched the driving manuals of all fifty states of the United States for a comprehensive coverage of every driving situation. Realizing that the traffic-situations-questions may be too difficult at first for little children and for the beginning player, but still wanting to get them started with the game, the inventors chose to create two easy forms of the game to be played with a cube or die, one form for little children and one form for older beginners, in addition to the form played with the traffic-situations questions. The children's game is to be played on driving pathways on the cover of the main game board. The beginners' form and the advanced questions-and-answers form are to be played on the main game board pathways. The inventors used the art principles of painting and of stage design to make the game apparatus colorful and aesthetically pleasing, and the stage principles of movement and directing to make the playing exciting. Besides solutions to problems of traffic situations involving traffic-laws driving skills, and defensive driving techniques, geographic locations across the United States add to knowledge and to interest. In addition, the player learns to follow maps and routes in a simulated trip across the United States and to handle his car according to traffic laws and good driving practices.